My most recent acquisition is the Criterion Edition Blu-ray of the classic horror/SF film,Island Of Lost Souls, adapted from the H.G. Wells classic novel The Island of Dr Moreau.

The novel has been adapted to the silver screen three times, most recently 1996 starring Val Kilmer and Marlon Brandon,  in 1977 with Michael York and Burt Lancaster, and this, the first time, 1932 under the title Island of Lost Souls.  After Universal’s staggering successes with Frankenstein and Dracula, and MGM’s profitable Freaks,Paramountwanted in on the horror market. They had limited success with Murders in the Rue Morgue, which played obliquely at the taboo or human/animal breeding. After acquiring the right to The Island of Dr. Moreau for $15,000Paramountplanned something wells had not imagined, a sexy, titillating horror film.

Edward Parker is rescued at sea after his passenger ship The Lady Vain is wrecked. After quarreling with the rescues ship’s captain, Parker is stranded on an island filled with strange deformed men and the mysterious Dr. Moreau, played with sinister charm by Charles Laughton. A guest in Moreau’s fortified home, Parker discovers the dark, twisted secretes of the deformed ‘natives’ and Moreau’s blasphemous experimentation.

This film pre-dates the heavy enforcement of ‘The Code,” The Motion Picture Production Code  was a self censorship by motion picture studios hoping to avoid legal censorship fromWashington. Because this film pre-dates code enforcement is deals more directly with the subjects such as animal/human mating and blasphemy. While there is no nudity, the film plays strongly with Lota’s sensuality and the temptation she presents to Parker.

I haven’t finished digging through the bonus material for this edition, Criterion tends to got with high quality materials, but already I am quite happy to have purchased this disc. Even with dated elements here and there this film plays far better than either the 1977 or the 1996 remakes, though these films in many ways played closer to the source material.

The story is also, I think, the first ‘uplift.’ science-fiction tale. Uplifting is the theoretical process of taking an animal base stock and elevating its mental abilities to human equivalent or better. In two weeks I will participate in a panel discussing the ethics of uplifting and I look forward to bring Moreau into the conversation.